FLOATING SUPPORT SERVICES
The Service aims to provide support and assistance to families and vulnerable adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness due to housing related issues. The service provides Floating Support input to ensure that families and vulnerable adults maintain their accommodation within the community in the long term. This is achieved by offering structured support packages tailored to meet individual need. The aims and objectives of the service is to engage with the individual or family through flexible needs assessment and support planning approaches that responds to the needs and preferences of the service users.
The objectives are:
- To assist families, vulnerable Adults and young people to secure and or maintain themselves successfully within their accommodation. Through allocated key worker links to enable homeless families, vulnerable adults and young people to acquire the skills necessary to maintain themselves in accommodation within the community.
- To provide an accessible single point of contact.
- To coordinate the delivery of comprehensive support packages to the identified needs of the service user and to ensure continuity of support in keeping with their assessed needs.
- To offer mediation as a preventative measure to service users at risk of homelessness.
5. In the event of homelessness, assist service users in finding appropriate accommodation that meet their specific needs.
6.To ensure that service users have the necessary skills and support to maintain a tenancy.
7. To sign post service users to appropriate agencies to maximise their support network and ensure that their specific support needs are met.
ASSESSMENT OF NEED
- The floating support workers role will be to carry out a holistic needs/risk assessment to address the support needs of the service user to address the following issues:
- The individual/family’s accommodation/ housing situation and needs
- Their income/ education/ employment and training needs
- Their support networks, including links with family friends and other professionals.
- Their health, both physical and mental
- Their health and safety, including both risks from others and risks they themselves might pose. Included in this is also their history of offending.
- Their use of alcohol and drugs
- Their social and leisure interests
- Their cultural and faith needs
- Independent Living Skills
The service user, via cyclical monitoring, review of need will, alongside allocated Support Worker identify area’s that they feel they will need support with, these assessment’s address areas of:
Practical Support, looking at areas such as housing rights and responsibilities, budgeting, benefit entitlement, independent living skills and if the service user needs support to monitor repairs, make adaptations to properties due to a disability and all encompassing tenancy sustainment support.
Self Development/ Advocacy Support, looking at areas such as support when dealing with other statutory or voluntary agencies, support with building better relationships with family, support with tackling loneliness and isolation, support with building confidence and self esteem, emotional support, and building social skills.
Connecting To The Community / Opportunities, looking at areas such as, information and support to integrate into local community, Support in the resolution of neighbourhood disputes and problems with NIHE, Information on who to contact in an out of hours situation, facilitating access to health, leisure and transport, facilitate opportunities in education, training and employment.
From this information, a support plan is drawn up with the service user, this plan is individual to the individual and will offer variable levels of housing related support.
The overall ethos of the service is to enable homeless families and vulnerable adults to successfully uptake and maintain accommodation within the community. We have found as an organisation working with people who have chaotic or erratic lifestyles has led to an inability to maintain them in accommodation, thus increasing the likelihood of revolving door homelessness. The ethos of the service is to promote positive change to enable them to manage a home within the community.